by Matt Sernaker, Editor-in-Chief,

They say that all good things must come to an end, but I’m not sure I’m quite ready for this comic book run to be one of them. During our annual interview with Tom King at SDCC 2026, he kindly shared that his time with Wonder Woman would soon be coming to an end, and we can now confirm that his run with artist Daniel Sampere will be reaching its grand finale with the December 16th release of Wonder Woman #40.

To celebrate all that this creative team has accomplished during the iconic 40-issue narrative, we are pleased to welcome Daniel Sampere (Wonder Woman, Dark Crisis) to ComicsOnline. Sampere joined Host Matt Sernaker for an international discussion and explored the themes, iconic moments, and highlights of crafting Diana’s unique journey as part of the Dawn of DC & All In eras of the DC Universe.

This interview is available in both video and text formats. The transcription below has been slightly edited for clarity. We hope you enjoy.

ComicsOnline: Dani, I’m thrilled to be here today to celebrate your run on Wonder Woman. Everything you, Tom, and the team have created across 40+ issues is absolutely epic. And getting to see how the Wonder War will culminate in the coming months is a big deal for all of us. As a reader, I’ve loved every single moment, and I’m thrilled to celebrate this with you here today.

Daniel Sampere: Thank you. Yeah, it’s been a great pleasure for me to work on Wonder Woman. I never had so much joy working on a project before as I did with Wonder Woman, you know? So, it’s been incredible for me. Working with Tom, it’s also been a joy. He makes work so easy. We are always on the same page about art, about the pace, the storytelling, you know? I think we both see the storytelling and how comics should be done in a very similar way. So, I think we understand each other really well. When I came up with an idea or something, he’s always happy about it. So, it’s been really easy, and I enjoy working with him a lot.

CO: When I saw Tom at San Diego Comic-Con a few months ago, the first thing out of his mouth was singing your praises and the incredible art that you have crafted throughout this entire journey. I would love to hear about your process. I know we talked before about just how you brought in different elements from Wonder Woman and you sort of crafted your own journey, but I’d like to hear what that process was for you in particular.

DS: I already read some of the previous runs and the most important runs on Wonder Woman as a fan, but I read everything important again- the runs of Perez or Jimenez or, you know, the New 52- everything relevant about Wonder Woman to study it very carefully. I started asking myself questions about why I like some stuff, or maybe sometimes I saw Wonder Woman in comics that I didn’t enjoy that much, and I tried to understand why that version didn’t connect with me. If I know what I don’t like, I will know better what I like, and I was trying to form my own idea. I’m mixing a little bit of this and a little bit of that. So, I came up with the idea of making her very strong physically, very tall, with curly hair, no makeup, no heels, and all these little details to shape her, you know, as her version. The whole team liked it and supported it from the beginning. So, it was very easy in the end. Also, I tried to figure out not just her, like, visually, you know, but also how she moves in the acting, like giving her a calm attitude always; even in the most difficult situations, she remains calm and doesn’t overreact, you know. So, if the script at some point gets really, really hard or really, really dramatic and I make her break, it’s going to be more impactful, you know, because you are used to see her calm. All these ideas were from the beginning on the way of how I wanted to portray her visually.

CO: Since Tom, unfortunately, couldn’t join us today, I would love to talk about him a little bit for a moment. You’ve worked with so many different writers throughout your career. What are your dynamics when working together? How do you play off of each other? Is it something very unique as far as, you know, your relationship for working, or is it something that, you know, is pretty consistent from your personal experience?

DS: At the beginning, we used to talk pretty often because I asked a lot of questions. I came up with ideas, and I was like, what do you think about that? What do you think about this? And maybe I can change these panels on the script to make this, whatever, you know. I came up with new ideas, and he always agreed with what I had in mind. Like, yeah, yeah, this is great. Do it, do it. So, one day he was like, don’t ask, just do your thing, you know. We can move easier and faster this way. So, it’s been really fun for me because I felt absolute freedom to express myself as an artist and create. I also think I understand what he expects when he writes, you know. I see the path of the panels or how many panels are on a page. I see if it’s convenient to use symmetry or whatever. I think I understand what he likes, and he understands my strengths also as an artist. So, he kind of writes so I can show my strengths, you know. I think he read my comic books before working together to understand my strengths and my weaknesses, and I did the same. I read all his stuff before working with him. So, we understand each other pretty well. So, it’s been really easy. So, as we move forward over the years, right now, if we talk, it’s something casual but not more about ideas because I know what he wants; he knows what I want. So, we just keep moving, you know. Like, I don’t know how to say, like a machine that is already working, you know.

CO: As a creator, is there something that you’ve learned from this experience that you’re going to take on and use for future comics that you create?

DS: Oh, absolutely. I think I improved a lot. The issue I’m working on now, I have to check out a lot of stuff that I did in issue one. So, I’m going back to the origins, and I see the pages now, and I’m proud, but I see how my art has evolved. I don’t have as many lines as I used to. It’s a little bit more polished, my art. And I got used to what I was saying before about calm moments, and storytelling is everything, you know, the acting. When I started, I was coming from Dark Crisis and all other projects that were like very big fights and all this stuff. I was more obsessed with always being spectacular and, you know, a bombastic artist, and trying to show my skills. But I got rid of that, and I just try to focus now on storytelling and trying to tell the story the best I can. And if I can show off a little bit on a page because it’s a good time to do it, I’m gonna do it. But right now, I enjoy telling a story a lot more than I used to. I was more worried before about just doing spectacular art, you know, and I’m not so much into that.

CO: One of the pieces that I’ve enjoyed so much is the underlying themes of family and both Wonder Woman’s journey as well as her villains between the Sovereign and the Matriarch, you know, Diana and Steve’s parallels, and just obviously the elements of how their children have grown in the course of 40-plus issues. I think it’s been such a unique parallel that we haven’t really seen before with Diana in particular.

DS: Yes, I also love the way he’s written the family stuff, especially the relationship between Wonder Woman and the Wonder Girls, the rest of the girls. I enjoyed those parts a lot too. And I also think that it’s very cool that there’s parallelism between the Trinity child and the Matriarch child, you know, both being born at the same moment and having different ways that connect. It’s also a kind of symmetry between those babies, you know, so I really enjoyed that too. I think it’s very cool, and yeah, I like it.

CO: I love the behind-the-scenes stories of just hearing how things are made, especially with a long-form story such as this. I’m always curious: is this pretty consistent with the original pitch and concept that you all had come up with, or did the story change dramatically as you started to get deep into these characters and their world?

DS: To be honest, I haven’t been so involved in the story for that, you know, but I know from the beginning the main beats that we will have, like the Trinity’s birth and all this stuff, but I think Tom had some things clear in his mind, you know, like Trinity’s birth, but I also think that some parts of the story have been coming out as we progress, you know, like having new ideas and adding them later. And I think, if I’m not wrong, Matriarch was one of these ideas that came up a little bit later.

CO: Her development as we got to issue 25 and the reveal of how this character was now going to impact the larger DC Universe, especially in the future and now in the present for those of us who are current on The Wonder War, I think it’s added a new layer that we haven’t really seen for the future of DC. I also like the focus on the next generation of characters like Jon Kent and Damian Wayne and their evolutions coming through your book, as well as Trinity’s presence in the larger DC Universe. It’s been a joy to experience as a reader.

DS: It’s been a joy for me as a creator too, having the chance to design and co-create the daughter of Wonder Woman. You can imagine that for me, it’s a great experience, you know. I’m very proud of that, and I really enjoyed using her on the run, and I really hope that she can keep being a character in the main DC universe, you know, going forward and not just on a run. I’m willing to see her grow as a character starting on this run, you know, but this is not the end for her, just the beginning, I hope.

CO: We know that “The Wonder War, Act II” is going to be the culmination of this run. What does it mean to you as a creator to see the story at the beginning, middle, and end? Not many creators really get to have that run like this and know that the end is coming, but making sure that it’s a story that feels complete. I feel like so many times comics either get stopped midstream or there’s a creative change. So getting to do a full story, what does that mean for you?

DS: It means everything. That was the idea from since day one. When I took the job, I knew that I wanted to do something special with the character. I took the job very seriously because I know how important Wonder Woman is, and the whole team was on the same page about trying to make a great run, you know, and give our best. So it was clear from the beginning that this run was going to be ours, you know, and I was sure that I was not leaving the series on the half for any reason. I wanted to do all the issues that I can and I wanted to tell the end of the story. You know, for me, it’s very important to be on the final benches of this.

CO: This might be a challenging question, but with 40-some odd issues that you’ve gotten to craft, is there a panel, is there a moment that stands out to you particularly as sort of like that defining moment from your run?

DS: I especially love issue 14. I think it’s still my favorite. I love that script and the issue and I’m really proud how the issue came out and I usually don’t like my own art, you know, when I see it in, when I see past art, I usually I’m not very proud like I could do better now, but I still look at 14 and I’m happy with how it came out and I think it was a great moment for the series and I also have a great feelings about first two issues that everything was new and I think those issues are really powerful and have great moments like the entrance of Wonder Woman on the snow. I really liked that scene, and then the fight in issue two with the tanks and the soldiers. I think it was very powerful too, and in those issues I could take the chance to establish a lot of stuff that I wanted to establish in the series, like visually, you know, so I have very good feelings about those issues.

CS: One of the other pieces that I’ve enjoyed in particular as we’ve come towards the end is seeing how the fate of Wonder Woman, Diana fighting fate and saying that, you know, she’s the only one who really should be able to control it, not someone else, being a through line has been a pleasant surprise. Obviously, you guys have teed this up in earlier issues, but now getting to see how Steve and Trinity also play into how fate, you know, is intertwined with their story is something interesting. Did you know early on that the element of fate was really going to be such a critical component, or was that one of those pieces that also came through as the story developed?

DS: I knew they were going to play an important part in the story. That moment you’re talking about, particularly, surprised me because I found out when I was reading the script that I was going to draw the issue, so it was surprising to me at that moment.

CO: What will you miss most about working on Diana and her story?

DS: I think I’m going to miss everything, honestly. I’m going to miss the team. I’m going to miss working with Tom, and obviously I’m going to miss the character because I think she’s awesome and I had so much fun. I love drawing her being cool and being heroic and all this stuff, you know. I think she’s a great character, so I think I’m going to miss everything. I know she’s also in other DC projects, so I hope I can draw her again, but I’m going to miss everything about this one, honestly.

CO: My last question is this: If there’s something that you could share with the community, any message that you could send to your readers, what would it be?

DS: I just want to thank them for the support. I want to thank you, anybody that has been reading the series and have been supporting us. It’s been great to receive the love of the Wonder Woman fans. When I went to conventions and I could feel the excitement of people, it was really, really great. So I just want to thank the fans that have been with us and reading us and supporting. It means a lot, honestly.

CO: I’ve had the pleasure of reading the first issue of “The Wonder War, Act II”, and I think it absolutely sets the stage for a grand finale. I do want to mention that I’m a second-generation comic book reader, and my father and I have shared comics as our bonding component for years. He’s been reading every single issue of Wonder Woman from your run alongside me, and I’ve enjoyed having that conversation, along with sharing it with others. I hope that you all get to celebrate together, and as we reach the end of this run, it’s something that I’m going to miss, and I really appreciate getting to share this journey with you. Thank you so much.

DS: I really appreciate your words, and cheers to your father, too, for reading the series. It means a lot to us, honestly.

Special thanks to DC for arranging this interview.

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